


Strength and Power

by deathwailart



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, Mages, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Strength has meaning Morrigan," Flemeth would say as she examined her face critically in the shadows, inspecting though Morrigan knew not why as a child, "Power has meaning."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength and Power

No stories for her of lords and ladies, dashing knights winning the hands of fair princesses or some farmer's daughter stealing the heart of kings with her plain face and plainer manners. For her tales of a mother who is not a mother, not a mortal woman at all or anything any know of other than Flemeth. There was the tale of Conobar told to her more than once and how many endings there were Morrigan could not say as if it were a game to pluck the strand of truth from amid a tangle of lies. Morrigan grew up on nightmares. She went to bed cold from within, blood curdling in her veins as her voice wished to when she screamed from the terror that dogged her dreams in the Fade. She screamed and cried only once. She learned her lesson.  
  
"Strength has meaning Morrigan," Flemeth would say as she examined her face critically in the shadows, inspecting though Morrigan knew not why as a child, "power has meaning."  
  
Still when she slept her dreams were not restful. Every part of her turned to ice as Flemeth slept beside her in the same bed in their hut deep in the wilds, places easily abandoned when the Templars came to be lead on a merry chase by a little girl with shrieking laughter, Flemeth's cackling ringing out, something ancient and eldritch. Mother was what she called her but somehow it always came with a certain inflection most did not use when speaking of the woman who birthed them (although she has doubts, how much of her is truly Flemeth's, is it all blood or is it bearing?) and raised them (at least the Warden did not, when Morrigan asked.) Flemeth fitted better. Still she called her mother for that look that would flit across her face, half proud of this thing, her creation who grew strong and proud, half horrified to be acknowledged as aging, no longer the fair maiden who stole the heart of a Bann and poet. It would be Morrigan who would grow fair, hair black as a raven's wing, skin gleaming in the moonlight with their shared golden eyes as Flemeth's skin wrinkled, her curves sagging, hair grey. She suspects now that Flemeth only told her she was beautiful for the lesson about what men wished to believe about women and to assure herself that one day she would be beautiful again.  
  
(That plan is foiled for Morrigan will not have her body stolen. She will be her own person, she will write her own future as she sees fit.)  
  
There are many lessons Flemeth taught her daughter. How to shift her body – a trick taught first in the Fade where it is so much simpler, everything malleable and flickering at the edges – to twist flesh and bone until it is no longer something arduous but simple. Soon she took off as often as she could to explore in ways she could not in the body of a girl then a woman. A wolf to prowl, howling into the midnight air, hot breath and tiny beasts skittering away. A cat, lean grace and elegance with such sharp eyes that missed nothing. A freedom granted to her for as soon as she could run in the wilds with the beasts she was off, no more nightmares, no more Flemeth sleeping so close that she felt smothered by her. Sometimes the nightmare creatures of her dreams had Flemeth's face or a dragon that spoke with her mother's voice, stalking her as she ran with vines whipping at her face and catching her wrists, roots dogging her steps until she could feel hot breath upon her. There are many things who lurk in the Fade but not even the demons haunt her as much as this phantom does to the point that she wonders even now what was simply a nightmare and what was the product of the Fade. Even in the Warden's camp she dreams fitfully of what might be with the words only she can read taunting her; a daughter raised strong, taught magic the Circle has long forgotten or banned even though it is far from evil but they are so afraid of what once was. And even more afraid of what will happen when the Mages remember that they are strong, strong enough to take on their Templars and see the Chantry crushed although she holds little hope when so many submit to being captured and held in such a way. It sickens her, the way they give up their freedom. At least some try to escape although blood magic, such foolishness but at least that one is free now to make his way in the world should he stay clear of danger.  
  
When the Warden brings her the 'gift' Flemeth left she dons it with a proud smile. She believes what she is told about Flemeth at last being gone to bother her no more and she wears the robes to give herself strength, ancient magic stitched into every seam, every feather, every stone. So like what she fashioned herself from what was around her, practical as ever.  
  
What is not practical is the way she admires herself in the mirror given as a gift.  
  
As her fingers clutch it tightly, she feels as though her hands are much smaller and the mirror much larger. Childish glee and delight at this beautiful prize, a thing she had never been given, a thing never equated with her but for Flemeth telling her how to wield it to her advantage. And then it was often about men and what Flemeth did, when Morrigan would sit outside sick to her stomach because Flemeth was not quiet about her sating her pleasures and hungers with the Chasind men she lured to their huts, men who did not return and hung instead from trees later, their bodies bloated and gathering flies or left out in the swamps for the beasts to feed upon. The Chasind always looked upon them both with eyes wide with fear or narrowed with hate and suspicion. Anything with yellow eyes was not to be trusted but they would not raise a hand against them when they went near them, most likely out of fear of Flemeth's terrible wrath and the stories she had made of her and her daughters who killed men with a look, who stole babies from their cradles to bathe in their blood to keep them strong or all the other things Morrigan heard when she went among them as a beast, the things they would not dare repeat when she took ragged scraps of robes and cloth to make her own clothing. She will always remember her mirror though, how beautiful it was and how much she loved it, stupid thing though it was. Her mother's face had terrified her when it had been discovered. How she had wept great heaving sobs with fat tears rolling down her cheeks reflected back half a hundred times in jagged fragments upon the ground as her mother railed at her.  
  
"Do you think this matters? Beauty fades Morrigan, beauty is a fleeting thing." Flemeth had bent close with what remained of the mirror tossed to the ground, kneeling amidst the shards of broken glass without a care, her hands tight around Morrigan's wrists. "Remember what I taught you."  
  
"Strength has meaning," she'd replied, forcing herself to meet her mother's eyes, "power has meaning."  
  
She'd been given the tools to make her own stave. Had fashioned them one after the other until her mother was satisfied with her work before she had made her cast spells until she'd been ready to faint from it. They'd had little access to lyrium in the wilds – some from Templars who tried to chase them and some from when Morrigan ventured into the towns, her fingers light enough, her feet faster until she could hide as a cat in some place, curled around her stash until later. But she used it little. She was strong. Even now she does not down it as Wynne does. It keeps the Mages as dependent as the Templars, all little puppets dancing as the Chantry dictates.  
  
She garbs herself in what the Warden gives her, gifts doled out to each one of them. Morrigan has never had so many things and never has she been given beautiful gifts, only the practical. Now amidst the stones of the neck of her robes lie necklaces and amulets of gold and silver, a broach of silver upon her robes themselves too, near to the glossy feathers at her shoulder. Silly, impractical yet cherished. Never removed but for when she bathes. Would Flemeth have kept these things if she had been able to sink her claws into Morrigan when the Blight ended and she returned back to whatever remained of the wilds. Would that have been all there was to mark that she had ever lived? Baubles tossed aside with only the powerful things left – robes, stave, amulets, belts and rings, the books Flemeth would keep too but scattered chains and a golden mirror crushed underfoot the only things to mark that Morrigan ever lived.  
  
Now she sits with her belly growing, hands cupping that gentle swell, hands that have calluses from staves and spells, from traversing the wilds and fighting all sorts of creatures, magical and benign. Can she be a mother? There is little choice for who could she trust to raise this child of hers who will be like no other, an old god's soul wrapped around her magic and something older, all entwined with whatever it is that makes a Grey Warden. There is only one way to prepare her son (a son who will have her golden eyes, some things will always be passed on) for what he must do and perhaps he will feel that same conflict of love and something akin to revulsion for her that she felt (and still feels) for Flemeth.  
  
Her stories will be of blood and battle and when the lords and ladies, kings and queens are mentioned it will be for how mortal they are. She will teach her son the same skills Flemeth taught her though and that is the skill innate to all who share the blood of witches of the wilds; how to craft their legend as they live, to make myths out of themselves even when for all their magic they are still creatures of flesh and blood and bone that can be ripped asunder. Fate and chance rule them but she knows how to bend them to her will or at least how to move with little regard for them. She'll raise this son of hers to be strong, he might grow with nightmares but she will teach him of strength and power and most importantly where he will find them.  
  
And even if he one day chooses not to, he can always find both in her arms.


End file.
